Hulu gets Crunchie award for Best Video Startup
Have you got Hulu beta yet? A joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp, Hulu is a new online video on demand service that will also be offering video sharing. The potential of Hulu has been recognised by Tech Crunch, GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb and VentureBeat, who awarded it the Crunchie award for Best Video Startup at the 2007 Crunchies.
As well as movies, Hulu offers full-length episodes of NBC and FOX television programs, including shows from the Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, and Oxygen channels.
Hulu is currently in limited beta testing, during which fifteen to thirty second advertisements are presented where the normal three minute ad break would be.
In a manner similar to an old Martini ad, Hulu claim that their content is available “anywhere, anytime”, (actually, with Martini it was “anytime, any place, anywhere”), but the content on Hulu is currently only available to users in the United States, so not exactly the anywhere, anytime that Hulu over ambitiously claim.
However Hulu does claim that it is working on making its content accessible worldwide. Let’s hope so. What may be holding this back is the process of clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific region, which will take forever and a day.
If you want to sign up to beta test this new site, you can put in your email address on their home page, and they will add you to the private beta waiting list, and send you an invitation with username and password when they are ready for you. This doesn’t happen instantaneously – I signed up and still haven’t heard anything.